Indonesia arrests second man over bomb funds: police

Indonesian police said on Wednesday they had arrested a second man suspected of helping to finance twin suicide bombings on hotels in Jakarta last month.

Indonesian police said on Wednesday they had arrested a second man suspected of helping to finance twin suicide bombings on hotels in Jakarta last month.

The Indonesian man was caught by counter-terror squad officers on Tuesday in the Pamulang area, west of Jakarta, police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told AFP. "We arrested Muhamad Jibril Abdurahman on Tuesday at about 4:00 pm (0900 GMT)," he said.

Muhamad Jibril, alias Muhamad Ricky Ardan bin Mohammad Iqbal, was linked to the network that carried out the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people, police said.

He was a suspected accomplice of detained Saudi national Al Khalil Ali, who was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of channeling funds from abroad to pay for the attacks.

Indonesian extremism analyst Noor Huda Ismail said Muhamad Jibril had studied in the Pakistani city of Karachi and was well-known in radical circles as a publicist of extremist material.

He edited a publication called Jihadmagz and worked on a website, Arrahmah.com, which espoused jihad or "holy war" against the West.

Police raided the website's office late Tuesday in the Bintaro area on the outskirts of Jakarta, Soekarna said. The website was down for "system maintenance" on Wednesday.

"He chose his jihad path through working in the media. He felt there were many Muslims who were being suppressed everywhere and there was a war of thoughts," Noor Huda said.

"Through Arrahmah and Jihadmagz he felt that he could counter one-sided news on Islam. His media has been productive in its work," he said.

Muhamad Jibril is the son of Abu Jibril, an Indonesian Islamist cleric who was arrested in Malaysia in 2001 on suspicion of being a senior member of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network.

Abu Jibril was later deported to Indonesia where he served about five months in jail for using a forged passport. He also runs a website, Abujibriel.com, which supports radical Islamic groups.

"Jihad and terrorism are not something to be afraid of or avoided, because to cause terror to Allah's enemies is the instruction of Islam," said an article which appeared on both websites after the July 17 attacks.

Jibril's detention brings to six the number of people arrested over the attacks, including an Indonesian called Iwan who was subsequently released.

Five other suspects are being sought, including Malaysian alleged mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, who was reported killed in a police raid earlier this month but remains at large.

Another five alleged members of the cell have been killed, including the two suicide bombers and the operational planner, police said.

Analysts have said that if the funding for the attacks came from abroad, a likely source would be Al-Qaeda. But Soekarna said no such connection had been found and the source of the funds was still under investigation.